


a beginner’s guide to stealing hearts (for fun and profit)

by agivise



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mayhem, Murder, Mystery, and fun!, juno steel and the mysterious case of ‘this is highkey a transistor au but not quite’, obligatory misuse of sci fi tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-05 20:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16817737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agivise/pseuds/agivise
Summary: Juno Steel has three friends: his secretary, his whisky, and a talking sword which has apparently decided to make his life even more of a living hell than usual. And, trust him, that bar is pretty damn high as is.He just wants his voice back. Instead, he gets heart thieves, life debts, lying corpses, telepathic connections, and a threateningly robotic cat that hereallywishes wasn't namedJunebug.





	1. old friends

**Author's Note:**

> this _is_ a transistor au (like transistor the game) but you super don't have to know anything about transistor to read it, i just kept thinking that juno reminded me a lot of red and i couldn't resist That Aesthetic. it's not gonna follow the same plot or setting or characters, it'll just co-opt a bunch of the tropes (and ost titles) because i love transistor and im lame  
> (also im only halfway through season 2 so if you little monsters spoil anything in the comments im RIOTING)  
> warnings for blood, death, horrific misuse of puns, and probably at least eight other things because if you know my writing you know it's a real mess 24/7
> 
> today's song recs: velvet light by jakob ogawa and roma fade by andrew bird

i.

Samyn Jonquil is a soul with a glare like tar, the presence of a pipe bomb, and at least twice as many arms as would be reasonably necessary.

They cross these many arms with a real vengeance, leaning back against the door to Juno Steel’s office like a hawk watching a snake writhe around beneath its claws. Their hair is chopped short and slicked forwards like black icicles, casting a wonderfully melodramatic shadow across the left half of their face.

The metal half, specifically.

“Been a while,” Juno says with an unimpressed smile plastered on his lips, swishing the last droplets around the bottom of his tragically empty glass. “I see you’ve given yourself quite the makeover. You look positively… dare I say  _ arachnoid. _ ”

“Cybernetics are my whole life, Juno, and quite literally, too. It’s a miracle I kept most of my body meat-based for as long as I did. Some time back, I decided to finally… _let go_. To have a little fun with my bland old body. And _fun_ _I had.”_

“Some time back indeed,” Juno says, watching cautiously as they glance at the mangled scars trailing their way from his brow to his cheek.

“How  _ has  _ that new eye been these last few years?” they ask with a nauseating hint of pride.

“You don’t need me to tell you how exceptional your work is, Samyn. Occasional glitch aside, of course.”

“Of course.” 

He sighs. “Great. Love the small talk. Now get to the point. Why are you here?”

They uncross their arms. “I needed a hand — no pun intended — and Cecil suggested I come here. He’s particularly fond of you, you know. Said you were the best in town.”

“Alright, why are you  _ actually  _ here?”

“Fine, fine, truth it is. I needed a private eye — again, not a pun — and you’re only two blocks away from the very interesting crime scene that I have so _ generously _ chosen to show you while my darling employees distract the cops.”

Juno’s heard his fill. No way in hell is he getting involved with this lunatic’s dealings again. Not after what happened last time. “Rita, would you please show them the exi— Rita?”

In return, he’s granted with her grating, resplendent laughter. “Mistah’ Steel! Oh my goodness, Mistah’ Steel, come take a look at this cat, isn’t it just absolutely precious? Just the sweetest little thing you’ve ever seen?”

Juno glances over at Rita, the cat held so tight in her arms he’s almost worried she might just suffocate it with all that love and affection. Its fur is charmingly ratty. Calculatedly so. He turns back to Samyn. “That cat’s a robot, isn’t it?”

They grin. “Modeled to look just like a real one. Moves and breathes and even bleeds, just like the real thing. How’d you know? Most people wouldn’t believe it wasn’t a normal living thing if hit them over the head with it.”

“Nothing’s ever ‘just a cat’ or ‘just a friendly visit’ or ‘just a kind gesture’ with you, Jonquil.” He sets down his glass and stands. “You’re not gonna let me just say no to this one, are you?”

“You owe me a favor. Fancy cybernetic eyes like that don’t come cheap, you know.”

“You mean the eye you gave me to replace the one I lost  _ while working a case for you?” _ he scoffs.

“Semantics, Steel. At least take a listen. You haven’t even heard what this new one is about yet.”

Juno sits back down. “Fine. I’ll bite. What’s the scoop?”

“It appears that someone has made a habit of going around stealing hearts.”

He smirks and raises his brow. “I know the type.”

“Not  _ this  _ type, Juno. At the very least, I hope not, but with you, I never know.”

“How exactly has this Casanova caused a crime scene? Jilted lover looking for revenge?”

“Oh,  _ gods, _ no, you know I would never involve myself in something so… petty. I meant someone has been  _ literally  _ stealing hearts. Right out of ribcages, it seems.”

“You mean — organ harvesting? Shit. That’s… not good.”

“Yes, I second that opinion. For different reasons than you, though, I suspect.”

“That’s… that makes sense, I guess.”

They tap at their watch impatiently. “Now, let’s _ go _ , before the body gets cold. And before the cops actually start clumsily poking around and carelessly trucking away evidence. Coffee and donuts only distract them for so long, I’ve found.”

“Hey, wait a second,  _ wait _ a second, I didn’t agree to take the case just yet.”

They pause in thought. “That eye sure is pretty, Steel. It’d be a shame if someone took it away.”

“You’ve always been good at making empty threats. Emphasis on  _ empty. _ I need something a bit more tangible than a threat if you want my full attention.”

Rita keeps cooing at the android kitten from the other side of the room. She looks happier than Juno’s seen her in a long, long time. Ages, really.

“The cat,” he says, with a definite certainty in his voice.

Samyn blinks. “What about it?”

“I want the cat. Give me the cat, and I give you my full effort in this case.”

“That is a multi-million cred cat, Juno. I’m not just going to hand it out as a consolation prize for getting your eye shot off.”

“You’ll get it back, at the end of the case. Just let Rita keep it while I’m out and about solving your little murder mystery. That’s all I’m asking. It’s really not much.”

“That — that seems fair. It’s an older model anyways,” they add as an afterthought. “Rita, dear?”

“Yes?” she says through a faceful of cat.

“Her name is Junebug. She eats raw fish, canned chili, and battery acid. Treat her well.”

Rita nearly faints, face brimming with something that looks remarkably like overwhelming joy.

(“Please tell me you didn’t name a nightmarish robot cat after me,” Juno groans.

“Of course not,” Samyn scoffs.  _ “Cecil _ named it after you.”)

——— 

Juno stares at the corpse. It’s hard not to, with the massive, strangely intricate sword sticking out of half his chest, the other half torn wide open, his heart cut clean out with a surgical precision. His eyes are empty, vacant. In life, he suspects they may have been memorably bright and clear.

Past the gruesome reek of blood and sinew, he faintly catches the smell of strong cologne, sweet and warm. It’s a scent he doesn’t expect to soon forget.

“So, what, was this guy a friend of yours?” Juno asks without hesitation.

“Never seen him before in my life.”

“No offense, but how exactly are you affected by this, then? I didn’t take you as the hyper-sympathetic type. I just don’t see the motivation for you going to all this trouble for a couple of dead strangers.”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret: making androids, like that sweet little kitten I showed you, is remarkably expensive, and not particularly profitable. Pet projects like that are my heart and soul, sure, but I’m still running a business here. Do you know what our main source of income is, Juno?”

Realization dawns across his thoughts. He shuts his eyes tight for a long second. “Let me guess. Artificial organs?”

_ “Now _ you’re getting it. Making cybernetic organs from scratch is still pricey, mind you, but with transplant waiting lists that could stretch to Venus and back, a deficit of donated flesh-and-blood organs allows my company to thrive. It’s amazing what the wealthy will pay for a shiny new lung or two. Hearts are ten times that price. Some of the richest even get new ones before they really need them, just as a preventative — or perhaps  _ fashionable _ — measure.” They take a moment to snap a picture of the crime scene before them, frowning. “It’s simple supply and demand, really. Having some back-alley bastards hemorrhaging our profits by oversaturating the market with stolen organs would be  _ very _ bad for business. After I heard word of an influx of fresh hearts, I got right to looking for a culprit.”

Samyn glares at the corpse. 

“At first,” they continue, “thinking this was meant to target me and my company was just a mere sneaking suspicion of mine. With that particular weapon, though — the killer might as well have just  _ spat _ on me. That, or it’s one hell of a coincidence.”

“You recognize the sword?” Juno asks, crouching down beside it to get a closer look. The scent grows stronger.

Something about the sword just… just  _ calls  _ to Juno. Begs for him to reach out, to come closer, to be  _ near  _ it. Hell, he almost listens, but his hand jumps to his his gun instead. There’s an unsettling feeling hanging in the air around him, a feeling that he doesn’t trust, no matter how bad he wants to.

“Recognize it? I  _ made  _ it.” They frown bitterly.  _ “Most  _ of it, at least, though a bit was based on old Martian tech. It was stolen from me not long ago, right from under my nose. A real shame, too. Outdated or not, it was a wonderful piece of tech. Goodness, I hope the others weren’t killed with it, too, what a  _ mess _ that would be. Luckily, it doesn’t appear to have been activated, but I still wouldn’t touch it if I were you.”

“I want…” Juno hovers his hand beside the blade, feeling an electric hum radiating off of it. “What — what  _ is _ it?”

“On its own, nothing special. With some gentle nudging, though…” They almost sound guilty. Worried, even. That tends to be cause for concern.

Not that Juno’s concerned, though. Just… enraptured. He feels a wretched confusion — fear, even, but not  _ his  _ fear, and not Jonquil’s. Something else’s fear.  _ Someone _ else’s. It’s practically screaming at him to reach out, to do something. If he just… 

Before he can stop himself, he grabs the handle and yanks the sword from the corpse’s chest.

_ “Woah,  _ there, Steel, I didn’t take you as the mishandling evidence type —” someone says fuzzily in the background, but he’s not paying attention to them, not to the gory scene around him, just to the blade in his hand, now glimmering wildly with a vibrant set of lights, all flickering into life together. The lights shudder in unison, as if surfacing from the sea and taking a first, gasping breath. For a terrifying moment, it feels like someone’s rooting through his brains with a box cutter, and he’s too shocked to protest.

It’s quiet, and then it’s not.

It’s quiet, and then the sword speaks.

“Is… is that me?” it asks shakily. It’s the kind of voice that’s just sweet enough, just elegant enough, for frailty to sound incredibly unnatural among the tones, a rare and fascinating thing. Juno could get used to that voice.

Juno runs his fingers gently along the edge of the blade. The corpse remains a corpse. The sword, as if it has just realized this, flashes with an unsteady light. There’s a long and stunned silence from Juno, an exasperated silence from Samyn, and a pensive silence from the sword, before it speaks again, lights shimmering smoothly as it does.

“Hello,” the sword says with great hesitance. “My name is Rex Glass, and I seem to be quite dead.”   
  



	2. vanishing point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's so short, folks! i had this part done but backburnered for a while cos i kept wanting to add to it but i kinda just like this chapter as is tbh  
> today's song recs: dog nightmare by jack stabber and gronlandic edit by of montreal

ii.

Juno tries, as any semi-sane person would in a situation of this caliber, to very calmly request that someone please tell him what the  _ fuck  _ is going on.

And, as tends to happen in his constantly, remarkably, and indiscriminately disastrous life, Juno Steel fails spectacularly at his attempt and confuses the living hell out of his companions in the process. The words never leave his mouth. Hell, they never even form. He can’t get so much as a  _ yelp _ out of his backstabbing bastard throat. It feels like something’s clawing at his left temple from the inside out, which would’ve elicited a very offended “fucking  _ ouch” _ if Juno were currently capable of expressing such a sentiment.

He then naturally tries to dramatically monologue the fact that he’s just lost his ability to speak, but this proves quite difficult, as he’s just lost his ability to speak. He instead directs this sentiment towards clawing at his own neck with his free hand like a cat at a screen door, as if that would somehow help. At all. Even a little bit. (Newsflash: it doesn’t.)

“Am I a sword?” asks the sword with a particularly smiley-sounding voice, and Juno would like nothing more in the world than to scream out of pure frustration.

The lights on the sword pulse like a wince.

Samyn chimes in with a quiet, “Ah,  _ hell,” _ before glancing nervously over their shoulder. “Yes, hello, I’m Samyn Jonquil. Yes, you’re dead, truly sorry about that one, bud. No, we did not kill you, though you likely already remember that. The sword you’re in is named the Transistor. And the lovely lady currently holding you is Juno Steel. He’s usually a lot more snarky than this, trust me. Now that introductions are out of the w— Juno, what in god’s name are you doing?”

Juno, who is still opening and closing his jaw silently in what is either another attempt to speak or the world’s worst impression of a goldfish, soon gives up the ghost and goes full charades, giving a very angry thumbs down, pointing at his own throat, and then giving another, somehow even angrier thumbs down immediately after.

“Can you… not speak?” They squint a bit grumpily as Juno nods. “Oh, dear. I’ve never been gladder to have fired Leonard from the Quality Assurance team. He assured me that bug was fixed many months ago.”

As much as Juno is just  _ loving _ the small talk, he  _ definitely _ hears cops off in the distance, which is just about the worst thing that two weirdos and a talking sword crowded around a mangled, bloodsoaked corpse can hear. Especially when one of them is holding the murder weapon.

“Well,  _ shit,”  _ Jonquil says with a grin. “Err… it’s Sparknotes time, I guess. Good news: the dead guy’s consciousness has been stored in the hard drive of the Transistor. Bad news: the dead guy’s consciousness has been stored in the hard drive of the Transistor. Worse news: I’m, like,  _ super _ busy running a massive interplanetary company, so you’re on your own, kid.”

Juno grimaces in a way he hopes to hell and back expresses the distinct and resounding sentiment of “fucking  _ why”.  _

“I’m going to have to corroborate with the pretty one, here. Why exactly have you made a sword that absorbs entire consciousnesses?”

Jonquil shrugs with wild eyes and slinks over to an alleyway, moving through the world like a flurry of smoke. “How the hell else was I gonna get the cat into the robot?” 

(Juno mimes sighing as histrionically as possible.)

“What  _ exactly _ am I intended to do without a body?”

“Sounds like a  _ you _ problem.”

Upon hearing a group of entirely too many footsteps rounding the corner, Jonquil takes off for good, leaving Juno standing in the street with a blood-slicked blade in hand, a heartless man at his feet, and a truth that somehow sounds one hell of a lot more suspicious than running from the cops right here and now would look.

He tries to growl, and to his simultaneous delight and disappointment manages only a quiet, transient hum. It seems the cat’s still got his tongue, metaphorically speaking. He takes a deep breath, swings the sword onto his shoulder, and slips off into the dark along an unfamiliar path just as a voice in the distance shouts for him to stop.

——— 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!  
> kudos and comments keep me going


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